The next three days were all the same. Addie woke up, ate porridge, worked on her soul damage, and slept. Mostly, she slept, really. Christena continued to check on her throughout those three days, too.
By the second day, her fever had finally broken, and by the third day, she was feeling well enough to get around the mansion and eat normal food again.
Addie felt she had gotten quite good at the simple soul exercise Christena had taught her, though according to Christena, it was only the very first step of the transcendent loop. Additionally, almost all of the burns on Addie’s soul-shell had been mended. With one more good session tonight and tomorrow morning, she would be fully recovered. Christena agreed, too.
Unfortunately, Nettal still didn’t show many signs of getting better, and Auntie still hadn’t tracked down the evil Pigling. Not that Addie was surprised. Auntie just wouldn’t listen when Addie tried to explain that the Pigling was still in Realmspace. Auntie was stubborn.
Mr. Owlcharge hadn’t visited these last few days, either. He trying to appease the townsfolk in his Area and generally keep the panic down for all of the other children who had been targeted.
The days seemed to drag on, with everyone in a poor mood. Auntie constantly talked about being unable to find the ‘culprit’ as she said, and Addie thought she saw Auntie’s face break more than once. It was hard on Addie, both losing her friend and seeing her stuck asleep in bed like that, but Addie knew it was even harder on Auntie.
To try and distract herself, Addie threw herself into the lessons with Christena, doing her best just to focus on the soul exercises. Once her soul was completely better, Christena promised to teach Addie the next step in the transcendent loop.
It didn’t take her long, either. Christena said Addie had completely finished healing by the next day, causing her to mumble something or another about ‘prodigies’ which slightly dampened the mood. Addie didn’t want to be a prodigy if it meant Nettal couldn’t be here learning, too.
Today, Christena was teaching Addie the next step, which involved cycling her magic all around her soul, instead of just targeting the magic to specific points.
Christena had laid her hand against Addie’s front, helping her learn how to move her magic. They both sat with their eyes closed in concentration.
“Let’s start by having you show me what you already know,” Christena instructed.
Addie’s easily followed along, as she withdrew her focus from her soul bond and traveled up towards her core just like Christena had initially taught her earlier. Then, with Squishy’s help, she pulled on some of their magic, and directed it up towards the surface of her soul shell.
Then, an unfamiliar presence grabbed ahold of her magic, but not in a forceful or frightening way. It felt like a guiding hand, showing her what to do.
“Flatten out the strand of magic like a sheet of paper.”
Without Addie’s instruction, her magic started flattening out. It felt something like when her father taught her to build a fire. It was like someone was grabbing onto her hands, and teaching her what motions to perform, except instead of grabbing her hands and moving them about, Christena was grabbing Addie’s magic and moving it.
“After you flatten out your magic, you wrap it all the way around your soul shell, like this.” Christena demonstrated again by grabbing Addie’s magic and wrapping her soul shell in her own magic. It kind of felt like Addie was being hugged by her own magic. Addie giggled at the sensation.
Christena abruptly let go of her hold on Addie’s magic, causing the construct to withdraw back into Addie’s soul.
“Once you have this mastered, it will help protect your soul against attack. Each layer of the transcendent loop you can create will guard your soul from direct attack.
“Now you try.”
After that, it was a long session, where Christena kept saying ‘start over’ each time Addie failed. But it didn’t matter. Addie had promised herself to take these magic lessons seriously.
Though, Addie discovered something strange, enveloping her soul with magic like that. By focusing so much on her soul shell, she became aware of her soul in a way she hadn’t before. Targeting specific sections had helped too, but there was something unique about feeling the entirety of her soul shell all at once.
She found a strand, a tiny piece of magic touching her soul shell. It didn’t go any farther into her soul than that, though. And she could tell that it wasn’t her magic, either. It almost felt like a string of fate. She felt a peculiar tug from it, almost trying to guide her towards something. She had shared her observations with Squishy.
“That does sound odd,” Squishy passed the message threw their bond, “I am familiar with such a feeling. I felt it once, when I was guided to you, in fact. I had not the sapience needed to understand it like you do now, but indeed, it is familiar.”
At first, that worried Addie. She didn’t want to be bonded to someone else, regardless of what the string of fate hoped for. She ruminated for a while and shared her concerns with Squishy.
“It is as simple as not acting, no?” Squishy suggested, “If you do not like it, hold strong and refuse to act.”
Luckily, it seemed that the string of power was directing her towards Realmspace, so she could probably ignore it fairly safely while in reality. She would have to be more careful when she went into Realmspace, now though. Maybe it had influenced her all along, guiding her towards something she would rather avoid. Maybe it had guided her towards the pigling that hurt Nettal.
That thought stung. Addie resolved to ignore the string and figure out a way to get rid of it, if she could. She was happy with her bond with Squishy, anyway. She didn’t need to find the other side of the string.
Before long, the day was over, yet again.
“Squishy, do you hear that?” Addie asked aloud.
“I hear only the rustling of sheets and the murmur of snores.”
“You silly cat, no, there’s something else! I think it’s coming from outside.”
From the outer reaches of her bedroom window, Addie heard a whisper. No, it was more than that. A plea, a cry for help.
“Someone needs our help!” Addie started scrambling out of bed. She didn’t care that it was the middle of the night, she loved the night. And more than that, she could hear the voice, a distant call for aid. It was a boy’s voice, Addie thought. Younger than her. Actually, a lot younger than her.
“We need to hurry, he can’t be older than a tiny baby.” Addie communicated to Squishy.
Now Addie was in a real panic. She could tell something was disastrously wrong, and it was more than just the distant whisper coming from outside. She quickly checked the soul thread she found attached to herself earlier in the day, but it still felt inert, calling to her from Realmspace. Then, the thread must have nothing to do with the current situation, Addie assumed. The crying voice wasn’t coming from Realmspace, after all.
Squishy was rushing around too, running to the entrance of the guest room and scooting Addie’s boots over to save her some time. Addie pulled her pajamas off as fast as possible and quickly grabbed a warm dress with long sleeves and a turtle neck. Just because she liked the darkness of night, didn’t mean she wanted to be cold.
It was a totally frantic rush out the door, as Addie ran through the halls towards the western wing of the mansion. In normal circumstances, Addie would have laughed at Squishy when his paws didn’t get traction on the hard wood floor causing him to scramble, but now wasn’t the time. They had a mission!
Luckily, Addie didn’t need to reach the front door of Auntie’s mansion. In fact, she didn’t even need to go downstairs. Addie rushed through the mansion at full speed until she hit the far side wall on the western wing. The only thing that witnessed Addie’s departure into Realmspace was a statue bust of some great Area Lord or another placed at the end of the hall.
Entering Realmspace from the second story of the mansion meant that Addie’s stomach dropped and she nearly flipped at the loss of footing as she plummeted towards the ground. With a pull on her well-practiced ability to change her momentum, she launched herself forward through the alternate dimension. Now tumbling forward and down towards the floor at an alarming rate, Addie exited Realmspace just before she met a painful crunch on the hard stone floor of Realmspace. During her exit from Realmspace, Addie and Squishy again pulled on their magic, forcing their momentum upwards as they exited back into reality.
The pair landed softly in the swampy muck, and Addie immediately took off in a run, not even bothering to glance at the Mansion behind her. Addie glanced over to her side, and she saw Squishy running alongside her, always the diligent friend.
They rushed through the swamp vegetation, both of them experts at traveling through difficult terrain by utilizing their spatial sense. It was dark, and she couldn’t see with her eyes in the dense brush anyways. Addie closed her eyes and basked in the feel of her spatial sense—the flex of exerting her soul on the world and using it to so easily rush past obstacles and keep steady footing. She felt the cool summer night wind brush past her as they made their way through the swamp.
As they rushed towards the cry for help, Addie thought she noticed a splash in the muck and directed her spatial sense to the disturbance. She could see what looked like a boot print in the mud. She and Squishy ran past the boot print quickly, and both of them kept their eyes out for who created it.
The two of them communicated silently, using their bond to speak telepathically.
“You saw it, too, right?” Addie asked.
Squishy sent a feeling of confirmation through the bond.
They kept running occasionally seeing more boot prints, but Addie didn’t see any more splashes. Whoever was creating the boot prints must have been running much faster and had probably gotten ahead of her and Squishy.
As Addie turned the bend of a particularly gnarly swamp tree, the cries for help became much stronger, and she saw something alive at the edge of her spatial sense.
Laying side down in the mud, was a baby deer. Still a tiny fawn, only slightly bigger than Squishy. She could see it was covered in the swamp mud, and it lay there in an awkward position, with its back legs draped over a rotting log. Maybe it had been running away and tripped. Addie knew he was where she had been feeling the cries for help from.
She only glanced briefly at the fawn though. Towering above him, was a man with a cloak over his features. Addie couldn’t make out his face, in the night swamp like this, and she hadn’t practiced using her spatial sense to look at people’s faces yet. Her spatial sense wasn’t like seeing with her eyes, after all. Despite not being able to see his features, he seemed slightly familiar.
Suddenly, eerily, he turned his head ninety degrees with a snap, looking directly at Addie. Addie almost called out to him, or otherwise ordered Squishy to attack, but before she could, the figure ran away as fast as he could. His adult strides were much faster than Addie’s, but she didn’t want to chase him, anyway.
Addie cautiously walked over to the fawn. He was breathing heavily, and it looked like some mud had made it into his mouth. His eyes were closed, and Addie wasn’t sure if he was even awake.
She tried shaking him, but the fawn was unresponsive. Addie closed her eyes, and extended her magic out to his soul, in much the same way Christena did for Addie during their transcendent loop practice. She probed around his soul shell and quickly realized that his soul had been burned, much like Addie’s had been a few days ago. Exactly the same as Nettal’s soul was now.
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https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/82948/whispers-from-realmspace
